Another option for learning pandas and running the examples in this book is to utilize the Wakari web-based Python Data Analysis platform. This service is freemium and it only takes a few minutes to create an account. All the examples in this book can be run with a free account. Wakari is available at https://wakari.io/.

On registering for the service, you will be presented with the following web interface for managing IPython Notebooks:

All of the functionality provided by the local IPython Notebook server installed by Anaconda is available, and much more—including viewing and managing remote Python terminals and the ability to select different Python distributions. At the time of writing, this was Anaconda 2.7 with pandas 0.15.1, the most recent versions of both.

You can upload the workbooks and data files provided with the text to your account and run/edit them immediately, without having to go through installing Python or pandas. Additionally, the examples for the...